| Jacob Kainen | ||
| Birth Date: December 7, 1909 |
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| Death Date: March 19, 2001 Artist Gallery |
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| Jacob Kainen was born to Russian immigrants in Waterbury, Connecticut, December 7, 1909.
He was filling sketchbooks by the time he as 13 or 14, and his first paint box had belonged to William Merritt Chase. At 16, he studied at the Art Students League at night, then enrolled as a full-time student at Pratt Institute the following year and, during one hectic period, also attended the New York Evening School of Industrial Art and studied privately.
In 1935, Kainen was a printmaker with the New York WPA Federal Art Project and, later, Curator of the Smithsonian’s Graphic Art collection.
From 1966 to 1970, Kainen was the Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Collection of Fine Arts. Starting in 1972, he was finally able to devote all his time to painting and printmaking. “What I like, chiefly, about printmaking, said Kainen, is that element of surprise…The approach is indirect; what finally appears as the print is the result of inspired calculation. I work as a kind of blindfolded calligrapher”.
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